Thursday 15 December 2011

Delphi and Windows 8

As many of you will be aware, the upcoming version of Windows, Windows 8, will be based around the Metro user interface, currently used by Windows Phone 7.x. This major UI change heralds a new programming challenge for Delphi developers, as Metro uses Xaml controls and requires use of a new Windows API called WinRT, which I gather was announced in September 2011.

WinRT is COM-based, but programming against it won’t require too much raw COM thanks to higher-level ‘projections’ for any given client language.

Windows 8 is still some way away, but if you want to get a flavour of how Delphi can already partake in the Windows 8 experience, pop along and see the hard work done by Thom Gerdes in his Writing Hello World for WinRT in Delphi article. For a more C++ oriented approach to Windows 8, also take a look at Ian Griffiths’ articles Real Native WinRT Development and Native WinRT Inheritance.

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